Unsophisticated home-shoppers tend to select a real estate agent based on a chance encounter at an open house or a friend-in-the-business referral. Savvy online-shoppers, on the other hand, do their homework, contact several successful agents and prepare lists of questions to ask these agents during how-can-you-help-me-buy-a-home interviews. Some of the questions should concern how involved the realtor is in the high-tech aspects of real estate. All other qualifications being equal, here are six reasons why a tech-savvy Kansas realtor can be a good bet.
1. A high-tech Kansas realtor uses e-mail to keep in touch with their clients.
If you want to communicate with your agent via e-mail about houses for sale, purchase negotiations and the status of your real estate transaction, you obviously need an agent who not only is equipped to send and receive e-mail messages, but also actually uses e-mail. Even better would be an agent with a laptop computer and an e-mail system faster than dial-up.
2. A high-tech Kansas realtor have great access to information.
It's no secret that the Web contains massive amounts of pertinent, informative and helpful information about real property and the business of real estate. A high-tech agent can find neighborhood profiles, mortgage qualifying calculators, real estate news, markets trends reports and much more with a few mouse clicks.
3. A high-tech Kansas realtor can show you educational Web sites.
First-time homebuyers, in particular, need to educate themselves about the wide world of home-buying and homeownership. A high-tech agent can recommend Web resources that explain everything from how to shop for a mortgage and why you need title insurance to how to pack your belongings and where to get seeds for your vegetable garden.
4. A high-tech Kansas realtor can help you house-hunt on the Web and by e-mail.
The days of squinting at tiny blurry pictures in a proprietary MLS book, then driving around for hours in the agent's car are fast coming to an end. A high-tech agent can point you to the best and biggest house-hunting Web sites and uses e-mail to zap new listings that meet your criteria directly to you. If there is no available picture of the home you desire on a web site, a high-tech agent will be able to zap a picture of the home and send a copy of it to you via e-mail. In the buying process, some of the best homes sell before they hit the market. This is because a high-tech agent will send out via e-mail information about the home as soon as it is listed. By working with a high-tech agent, you will be up to date on homes on the market.
5. A high-tech Kansas realtor networks online with other high-tech agents.
E-mail is becoming a popular means of communication for real estate agents, which use it to promote their listings to one another and keep in touch with market developments. In some communities, agents who don't use e-mail are falling out of the loop. Many agents don’t understand the web and how to e-mail; where as, a high tech agent uses the web and its capabilities to keep you the buyer up to date and informed. Ever wonder why certain agents always seem one step ahead. The advantage is the web.
6. A high-tech Kansas realtor will be able to organize and manage your transaction in cyberspace.
Do you want to know what is going on in your transaction, and it is 1:00 AM? Don’t worry if you are working with a high-tech agent. A high tech agent will keep you informed on the web. Need a inspector, mortgage company, or want know what time you are closing, a high tech agent will have that information available to you.
7. A high-tech Kansas realtor will market your home on the web.
Do you know that many agents have access to the internet and most embrace the technology. However, most do not understand full how it works. Advertising on the web is a lot like billboard advertising. Would you pay the same price for a billboard on 169 & 175th street as you would on I-35 & Johnson Drive? Of course not . . . the billboard on I-35 gets 20 times more traffic than the billboard on 169. Why pay the same price for web traffic if you are going to get 20 times less traffic. A good Kansas real estate website should have a page rank on google of at least a PR4 and average 50 new web viewers a day. Many will say they are achieving this but the facts are that less than 50 Kansas realtors are really mastering online marketing.
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